Interview With Paul Johnson - QuiltingHub CEO

Interview With Paul Johnson - QuiltingHub CEO

I am Quilting Contessa -- one of the contract writers for QuiltingHub. Ever since I started, people have been asking me about Paul Johnson (the creator of QuiltingHub). I wanted to share your top questions and some of mine.

Contessa: Do you quilt?

Paul: No. I like helping people, including quilters.

Contessa: What is your background?

Paul: Software and sales in the financial services and health industries. I have run my own financial services retail business where I trained and developed 38 sales people. I love helping people to achieve their goals either from training, teaching, or providing software tools.

Contessa: Many people say you are an overnight success. Is this true?

Paul: We all would like to think so, but getting to over 700,000 page views a month took 7 years of hard work. Being a male in the industry, I found that some quilters were not very receptive. It has taken time for them to see we are seriously trying to help them and we are here to stay. But, yes, we have been blessed with over 1.2 million page views a month. QuiltingHub has become mainstream and just as important as having a Facebook page. I am very pleased. But, no, it was not overnight! Hard work and persistence, yes. It has been a trial by fire, but we made it!

Contessa: How or why did you create QuiltingHub?

Paul: In 2010, I was looking to start another company, and stopped into a quilt shop. After learning from them about the poor lists of quilt shops and events, the idea of QuiltingHub was born -- to solve accuracy issues. I am privileged to use my software, sales, training, marketing, and my retail experience to benefit the industry and quilters. I love my work. Every day I wake up loving what I do and put in long hours helping people to achieve their goals (even 6 days a week). I love it!

Contessa: What Are your goals with QuiltingHub?

Paul: To provide an easy and accurate way for quilters to find resources and for those resources to be found in the most favorable light. In other words, allow those resources who list with us to look good and get found by quilters who are looking for them.

I want to provide the best possible value for both the quilters and the member listings around the world. The price of print advertising and even internet advertising has gone through the roof. Even the listings that have a fee pay less for the entire year than one day in the paper. I want QuiltingHub to be known as "the place to be" for all quilt shops, internet shops, brands, guilds, museums, service providers, and their events around the world.

I want to raise the bar for the quilting industry and help everyone achieve it.

Contessa: What is your advice for quilt shops [and other member listings]?

Paul: It is the same for any listing. Make your listing as visible as possible, add photos, add events, and get your likes and ratings up. Quilters are visually oriented. They find you by your events, respond favorably to your photos, and make their final decision based on your likes/ratings. The old days of your name and address on some list some place are gone. If that is all they have, they have missed the concept of effective internet marketing.

Contessa's Summary

I am one of several authors with QuiltingHub. They have a few data quality specialists, and a growing sales department. I really enjoy working with Paul. He gives me the freedom and flexibility to be me and let my style show through in my writing. He genuinely wants people to be successful and happy. I think his warm personality and a huge determination to be the best at what he does draws in like-minded people. It has been a pleasure working for QuiltingHub, Paul, and sharing this with you. If you have not done so already, get on QuiltingHub.com and benefit from QuiltingHub today.

 

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